The Taliban denied responsibility for the latest attack, which came at a sensitive time as representatives of the armed group and government meet in Qatar to seek a peace deal – even as violence has risen recently and the United States intends to withdraw its remaining troops from the country. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. The provincial police spokesman claimed the Taliban had placed the bomb.

The attack came in an area of west Kabul that is home to many from the Shia community, a minority in Afghanistan targeted by groups such as Islamic State in the past. The ISIL (ISIS) armed group has launched several attacks in Afghanistan on the Shia community, whom it views as apostates. The explosion struck outside the Kawsar-e Danish educational centre in the Pul-e-Khoshk area of Dasht-e-Barchi in west Kabul. In the same area of Kabul, dozens of students died in an attack on another educational centre in 2018, and in May, gunmen attacked a maternity ward, killing 24 people, including mothers and babies.

“I was standing about 100 metres from the centre when a big blast knocked me down,” said resident Ali Reza, who had gone to the hospital with his cousin who was wounded in the blast. “Dust and smokes were all around me. All those killed and wounded were students who wanted to enter the centre,” he added. Family members gathered at a nearby hospital, searching for missing loved ones among bags containing the remains of those killed, laid out on the hospital floor, while outside orderlies wheeled injured patients on stretchers for treatment, a witness said.

The interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said the attacker was trying to enter the centre when he was stopped by security guards and detonated his explosives. Arian said the attack had left at least 18 people dead and 57 wounded.

“We heard a huge blast outside an education centre in Pul-e-Khushk locality of Dashti Barchi area. The explosion triggered panic in the area in Police District 13 of Kabul,” eyewitness Mohammad Nabi told Xinhua.

Several educational and cultural centres, mosques and sports facilities have been attacked in the district in recent years, and most of the attacks have been claimed by the militants of the Islamic State (IS) group.

– Forty-eight people – many of them teenagers – were killed in August 2018 when a suicide bomber walked into a tuition facility in Kabul and detonated a device while teaching was underway. The Islamic State group said it was behind that attack.

– In May, 24 women, children and babies were killed when unidentified gunmen entered a maternity ward at a hospital in Kabul and opened fire.

– Earlier this week, 11 children and their prayer leader died an airstrike on a religious school in the northern Afghan province of Takhar, according to local officials. The Afghan government disputed the account, saying the strike had killed Taliban fighters.

By Karishma Gwalani